Core skills toolkit

Running a new or small community group or not-for-profit organisation can feel like juggling a dozen balls at once - strategic planning, community engagement, cultural responsiveness, and more. That's why we've created this practical, easy-to-use toolkit packed with resources and insights to help you thrive. 

This toolkit offers an overview of key topics that may be relevant to your organisation, alongside a list of resources to help you explore and navigate these areas. Whether you're focusing on strengthening your strategic direction, connecting with your community, or thinking about how to tell your impact story, this toolkit provides a starting point to support your journey.

Many organisations are keen to work towards becoming a Te Tiriti-focused organisation that works in partnership with Māori, being responsive to Māori as tāngata whenua and inclusive of everyone else as tāngata Tiriti.  

Why it’s important

• Respect: commitment is matched by competent practice and appropriate mahi.
• Inclusion: inclusive practices that benefit everyone in the community.
• Partnership: develop meaningful partnership with tāngata whenua, and listen and learn to deepen understanding and inform actions and behaviours.

Getting started

• What does working in partnership with Māori mean for your organisation?
• What do inclusive practices that benefit Māori look like in your organisation?
• How are you reflecting on and improving your organisation’s practices to better honour Te Tiriti?

Resources

• Engaging with Te Tiriti and Matike Mai. Resources for embracing te ao Māori in our organisations and workplaces. Matike Mai is a report on constitutional transformation for Aotearoa New Zealand.
• Nurturing cultural competency through webinars and news.
• Ngā rerenga o Te Tiriti: Community organisations engaging with the Treaty of Waitangi.  Offers practical insights on how community organisations can effectively engage with Te Tiriti o Waitangi and offers real-world examples and actionable strategies for embedding Te Tiriti.
  
• Te Tiriti resources.  A collection of resources that supports organisations and individuals to embed Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles into their daily actions and practices.
• Te Tiriti resources for learning and action. A webinar about how to take your organisation forward in actioning Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
• Together for a flourishing Aotearoa, Te Tiriti o Waitangi explained. A booklet covering why Te Tiriti is important to all of us, what Te Tiriti says and how we can talk with friends, whānau and workmates about Te Tiriti.

Community engagement is about building relationships with the people your organisation serves, and tapping into their knowledge about community needs and issues. It's essential because strong community ties lead to better support for your projects, opportunities for collaboration, and ensure your project reflects what’s important locally.

Why it’s important

• Connection: engaging with your community helps you understand their needs and how your organisation can address them.
• Support: a well-engaged community is more likely to support your initiatives, help spread your message and potentially volunteer.
• Impact: the more you involve your community, the greater the impact your projects will have.

Getting started

• Are you clear on your purpose for engaging with the community that your organisation serves?
• Do you have some ideas for the engagement strategies that will work well with your community?
• Once you’ve gathered information about their needs, do you have the resources to be able to act on that information, and demonstrate that you’ve listened to your community?

Resources

• Lessons for successful mana whenua engagement. Contains tips for those who want to engage well with mana whenua, but who might not know where to start. It provides a starting point for ensuring engagement starts well and continues positively. 
• Community engagement tips. Tips to strengthen and define your engagement approach, whether one-to-one, small groups or larger community gatherings.
• What should I know about running a public event? Provides guidance on organising a successful public event, covering key aspects such as planning, legal requirements, health and safety considerations, and promotion.
• Best Practice Guidelines – resources hub from Tūao Aotearoa Volunteering New Zealand. This is a website with a range of resources to help you work with volunteers in your organisations. From recruiting, on-boarding and training volunteers, to health and safety, recognising volunteer impact and exiting volunteers, it's all there.

Strategic planning is about setting long-term goals and determining the best ways to achieve them. Setting your organisation’s direction and priorities will help you stay focused and effective, and help ensure decision-making is more likely to be aligned to your mission and values, and it helps you stay focused and effective.

Why it’s important

• Direction: a clear plan guides your organisation’s actions and decisions.
• Efficiency: knowing your priorities helps you use resources wisely.
• Growth: strategic planning helps you anticipate challenges and opportunities.

Getting started

• Can you describe what you’re doing, why, and the difference you expect to make?
• What are the current trends and challenges in your sector and how will this influence what you do and who you engage with?
• What resources do you need to achieve your goals and how will they be allocated?

Resources

• Creating a powerful one-sentence statement for what you do. Offers guidance on crafting a compelling one-sentence statement that describes your organisation’s mission and impact. It helps answer questions like "How can we clearly and powerfully communicate what we do?" and "What key elements should our statement include?". 
• Strategic planning, what, why and how. Explains the fundamentals of strategic planning and presents a range of strategic planning tools.  
• Template for a strategic plan. This template provides a practical tool for creating a strategic plan. It helps answer questions like "How can we structure our strategic plan?" and "What key components should be included?”. 
• Developing strategy for your organisation. This workbook will introduce some key concepts to help you understand the role of strategy in your organisational planning, and how to develop your strategy. 

Evaluation is about assessing and demonstrating the value, effectiveness and difference made by an initiative. It also helps you to learn and inform future planning, action and decision making.

Why it’s important

• Demonstrating worth: shows you and others what is valuable and worth doing (and what not to do).
• Learning: evaluation provides valuable insights that help you improve what you do.
  
• Direction: understanding your impact can guide your future work.
• Credibility: showing the impact of your work builds trust with stakeholders and funders.
• Resourcing: evidencing impact helps sustain and grow resourcing for your work.

Getting started

• Do you have goals to identify the changes and outcomes you intend from your activities?
• Do you have an approach to evaluation that’s relevant and manageable for your organisation?
• Do you know how to demonstrate the impact of your work to stakeholders and funders?
• Are you using evaluation insights to improve your work?
• Have you considered how understanding your impact can guide your strategy?

Resources

• Introduction to evaluation. Introduces the basics of evaluation, explaining what it is and providing using frameworks and tools.
• Monitoring and evaluation. Provides an in-depth look at monitoring and evaluation, outlining the processes and tools needed to track and assess the progress and outcomes of your activities.
• What works – know and show the difference you make. A website for people in Aotearoa offering practical advice and tools for tracking and communicating the impact of your work.
• Understanding Your Impact: A Guide. Helps organisations understand and articulate their impact, providing a framework and approach for effective impact assessment.
• Evaluation; Fibre Fale’s Hibiscus Impact Model. A Pacific organisation's approach to understanding their impact.
• Demonstrating Impact - Useful tools. This workbook contains useful tools to understand and demonstrate impact, regardless of creative focus, scale and stage of development.
• Logic models and theory of change. A resource which explains the difference between logic models and theory of change models and how to use them.

Effective communication will help you to connect with your communities, share your story and demonstrate impact. Using up-to-date communication strategies will ensure that your organisation stays relevant and effectively engages your audience.

Why it’s important

• Engagement: effective communication, especially through social media, allows you to engage your audience with messages that resonate and prompt action.
• Storytelling: stories enable an emotional connection with your audience that helps build relationships and support.
• Relevance: staying current with communication trends, such as creating impactful content and leveraging social media, keeps your organisation visible
• Impact: clearly communicating your impact and evaluation findings builds trust with funders and demonstrates the value of their support.

Getting started

• Are your communication channels, especially social media, effectively engaging your audience?
• Is your content impactful and relevant to your target audience?
• Are the stories you share about your work and impact building relationships and support?
• Is the impact of your work being clearly communicated to your community and funders?

Resources

• Do you want to leverage social media to enhance your impact? Provides practical tips for growing your social media presence. 
• Creating content that counts in a changing world. Practical tips for creating compelling content and staying relevant with up-to-date communication strategies. Includes a template for social media planning in your organisation.
• Sharing your story. Guidance for arts (and other) organisations to create effective communication plans that align with their strategic goals 

Working in a culturally responsive way means recognising, respecting, and valuing the cultural diversity of the communities you serve. It involves actively incorporating cultural considerations into all aspects of your organisation’s work, from programme design to service delivery. It also fosters a culture of collaboration and innovation by bringing together different perspectives and ideas.

Why it’s important

• Respect: it ensures that your services are relevant and accessible to diverse groups.
• Effectiveness: services are more effective when they are culturally appropriate.
• Inclusion: it fosters trust and stronger relationships with your community as all voices are heard and valued.

Getting started

• Have you considered what working in a diverse and inclusive way means to your organisation?
• Are your services culturally appropriate and effective?
• How do you ensure that all voices in your organisation and community are heard and valued?

Resources

• Diversity Works NZ has a range of resources including an Aotearoa Inclusivity Matrix, policy and strategy templates and diversity sessions webinars.
• Working with tāngata whenua. Community-led Development. 
• How to hold a conversation on belonging. A resource from Inclusive Aotearoa Collective Tāhono.
• Te Tiriti justice from a faith-based organisation. A Christian group sharing the promise of mutual flourishing, that Te Tiriti o Waitangi represents. 
• A case study. Sharing Te Tāpui Atawhai Auckland City Mission’s commitment to acknowledging the relationship between Māori and Tāngata Tiriti under Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Wellbeing is about taking care of yourself and your team. Practices that foster self-awareness, reflection and self-care are important to sustain and inspire personal and organisational health. For small not-for- profits, integrating these practices can help manage the ups and downs of daily life and work.

Why it’s important

• Health: good wellbeing practices prevent burnout and promote long-term health.
• Productivity: healthy and happy teams are more productive and effective.
• Sustainability: taking care of your wellbeing ensures that your organisation can continue to thrive.

Getting started

• What are you doing to prioritise the wellbeing of yourself and your team?
• Do you have practices in place to prevent burnout and promote mental and physical health?
• Is your workplace culture supportive and inclusive, promoting a sense of belonging and respect among team members?

Resources

• Te Whare Tapa Whā. The Māori holistic model of health, Te Whare Tapa Whā, reminds you to take care of all the different aspects of your life to support your wellbeing. This resource includes videos, tips and personal stories.
• Hauora: Rest, reflect and reset for Matariki. Highlights the significance of Matariki, the Māori New Year, as a time for rest, reflection, and resetting personal and collective goals. It offers practical guidance and reflective practices to nurture well-being during this period.
• Unu Ora – a personal wellbeing resource. Provides tools and practices for personal well-being, rooted in Māori cultural traditions. It helps answer questions such as "What are some culturally grounded practices for enhancing personal well-being?" and "How can we incorporate these practices into our daily lives?"
• Ngahere - individual wellbeing practice. A resource for personal wellbeing, grounding and nurturing a connection to Papatūānuku. 
• Ngahere for Teams -  wellbeing practice for teams and workplaces. A resource designed to support teams build skills and practices for wellbeing and restorative systems change work.

This is a living resource and we are open to receiving your suggestions or links to useful resources.

Please send us an email on info@csinz.org with “Te Pūaha o te Ako toolkit” in the subject heading.

Image captions

1. Planning image: Jason-Goodman on Unsplash
2. Community walk: photo by Douglas Bagg on Unsplash
3. Te Tiriti image: copyright Maimoa Creative, all rights reserved
4. Post its on board: photo by airfocus on Unsplash
   
5. Leaf: photo by Toby Hall on Unsplash
6. Zoom meeting: photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash
7. People meeting: photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash
8. Forest image: photo by Adriel Kloppenburg on Unsplash.